After that coffee, Julian and I met twice more. Once we walked along the beach with our shoes in our hands, keeping enough space between us that anyone watching might assume we were acquaintances. Once we sat in his parked car during a rainstorm and talked until the windows fogged. He reached across the console to tuck hair behind my ear. I drew back, but not before I had enjoyed the touch. That night I told Nolan I had stayed late at work. He had saved dinner for me and left a note on the counter explaining how to reheat the rice without drying it out. I ate alone, feeling guilty for approximately ten minutes before I opened Julian's messages again.
Nolan noticed the growing absence long before he knew its name. I had stopped asking about his work unless it interfered with our plans. At dinner, I checked my phone between bites. When he asked if I'd like to take a weekend away together, I said travel would be too expensive and exhausting, though I had just spent an hour looking at hotels Julian recommended. One evening Nolan sat at the edge of our bed and asked whether we were still on the same side of things. I kissed his forehead, told him we'd both been busy, and suggested we talk after the summer season. He accepted the postponement because he believed I meant it.
That is the part I had trouble acknowledging in the months after the video. I hadn't been a woman overwhelmed by one unexpected impulse. I'd been standing in front of open doors and choosing secrecy over and over. The kiss was a culmination, not an exception. Even if no one had recorded it, even if Nolan had laughed it off to save face, the choice would still have been mine. I did not know how to make that admission until the person who needed to hear it had stopped asking for it.
On Tuesday, Tessa showed up at the house with a bag of groceries and the expression of someone entering a room where a small fire was still burning. She was four years younger than I was and had spent our childhood resisting my attempts to order her around. Now she was a middle school counselor, engaged to a carpenter named Ben, and better at listening than most people I knew. She put milk in the refrigerator, inspected the untouched takeout in the trash, and asked whether I had eaten anything that wasn't coffee. I snapped that I didn't need a babysitter.
"Then don't act like this is happening to you instead of because of you," she said. I told her I regretted what happened but that Nolan could have stayed and talked. She leaned against the counter. "You told him to file for divorce in front of everybody.